GIORA EILAND

When the political and military levels … want to initiate operational war they want to gain as much public support as possible. So whether they do it deliberately or not, they tend to promise that it will be much better than the way that it really could be. Now when the reality comes true and suddenly the results … are different from the expectations and the promises, then the frustration comes to be a very important factor.

People (political and military leaders) much prefer to speak of what they are going to do rather than what the outcome will be.

In this kind of war a natural gap exists between the expectations of the of the politicians, of the public opinion, of the press and the real capacity of the armed forces to deliver. The gap is a characteristic of this kind of war. The gap is related the four dimensions: To the duration of the war; to the number of casualties; to the damage to the innocent civilians on the other side; and, what is more important, is the solution to the problem of the question of whether or not a decisive victory can or cannot be achieved.

Every specific military operation does have a political dimension and every political initiative does have some security dimension.

People (political and military leaders) much prefer to speak of what they are going to do rather than what the outcome will be.

When the political and military levels … want to initiate operational war they want to gain as much public support as possible. So whether they do it deliberately or not, they tend to promise that it will be much better than the way that it really could be. Now when the reality comes true and suddenly the results … are different from the expectations and the promises, then the frustration comes to be a very important factor.

In this kind of war a natural gap exists between the expectations of the of the politicians, of the public opinion, of the press and the real capacity of the armed forces to deliver. The gap is a characteristic of this kind of war. The gap is related the four dimensions: To the duration of the war; to the number of casualties; to the damage to the innocent civilians on the other side; and, what is more important, is the solution to the problem of the question of whether or not a decisive victory can or cannot be achieved.

Every specific military operation does have a political dimension and every political initiative does have some security dimension.